Researchers have studied high and low to find the neuroscientific explanation to acting under orders; more specifically to determine whether ‘I was following orders’ is truly just an excuse or whether it has more serious complications. Enormous world or nation-scale events have led to scenarios where individuals would resort to that type of response to accusations. Following the second World War outcome, ‘excuses’ of this sort became known as the Nuremberg defense – and turned into a method for Nazi war criminals to act without consequence.
There have been studies performed back in the 1960s, known as the Milgram experiments that studied the way the human brain works when asked to perform tasks. This was done by asking a subject to give electric shocks to a different individual in an adjacent room. However, the latter was just an actor who wouldn’t truly be subjected to shocks, but it gave a great amount of insight regarding what the reactions were at a cerebral level.
Now, the experiment is being performed again, except it’s slightly different. This time around, there are electric shocks given, but they do not exceed a very small limit; also, both subjects are placed in the same room. One of them is given 2 buttons to press – one of them doesn’t do anything while the other one zaps the other person and transfers a small amount of money to the individual pressing the button.
The scenarios would differ from experiment to experiment and involved both the study of the reactions themselves as well as the perception that both subjects had of the events unfolding. The discoveries that were made as a result ended up being more than just insightful, and on several different levels.
Firstly, it was detected that there is actually a decrease in brain activity when someone is issued orders and they are ‘following’ them. This was read through the help of electroencephalogram caps, that also suggested that the consequences of the subject’s actions were perceived differently when they were told to do so.
Secondly, the experiment resulted in the conclusion that by simply ‘following orders’, one may lose some portion of their sense of responsibility by simply shifting the weight onto the one issuing the order. Perception of time also seemed to differ in the case of this experiment, when subjects reported that they felt that the time lapse before the tone that notified them to hit the ‘zapping’ button came was longer than the one when they did it of their own accord.
This proves that following orders has some deeper implications than just doing what one is told. The differences occur at a neurological level and could prove to be an explanation for other previously researched topics.
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